


Evermore

by purplejellosg1



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brooding, Christmas, F/M, Friendship, Introspection, Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:28:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28321644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplejellosg1/pseuds/purplejellosg1
Summary: Sam’s alone at Christmas.
Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Carter/Jack O'Neill
Comments: 22
Kudos: 84





	Evermore

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little thing that came to me on a strange Christmas Day.

As far as everyone at the SGC knew, she was spending Christmas with Pete.

Her fiancé.

Well, ex-fiancé but no one was aware of that fact yet.

No one seemed interested.

Sam nursed her wine, the sparkling fairy lights Cassie had insisted on putting up seeming to mock her.

To kick her while she was down.

Cassie wasn’t there, preferring to spend Christmas with General O’Neill, Daniel and Teal’c. She’d said she hadn’t wanted to intrude on Sam’s first Christmas with Pete, not realising that Sam had desperately wanted her to.

She hadn’t wanted to spend Christmas with him at all, never mind being alone with him.

But saying that out loud was hard, so she’d settled for pasting a smile on her face while screaming internally.

How she’d fallen into the same trap again, Sam couldn’t quite figure out. She was supposed to be one of the smart ones, wasn’t she? Didn’t Jack - General O’Neill - call her the SGC’s resident genius?

How then had she allowed herself to be manipulated into a relationship she didn’t want? How had she managed to convince herself it was what she needed?

Deserved?

She snorted into the wine glass, a humourless sound. Deserved was right.  
She deserved the Pete Shanahan’s, the Jonas Hanson’s of the world.

Deserved them, and no better, because who else would want her?

Work obsessed, Pete had taunted. Secretive. Self-centred.

Cold, Jonas had said. Too high and mighty. Thought too much of herself, of her career, so much so that she didn’t have time for others.

Except... they’d wanted her.

They both had.

To the extent that neither had wanted to let her go.

With Jonas, she’d had to move States and threaten him with a restraining order. 

With Pete, she’d changed the locks, blocked his number, and told him she’d go to the cops - his colleagues - if he didn’t leave her alone.

So far, it was working.

So far, the worst she’d had to deal with were messages on her answering machine from her brother blaming her for whatever had gone wrong.

That was fine, Sam thought. She’d take the blame - it was hers to claim - and if that was all she took away from another failed engagement, she’d consider herself lucky.

Except... it wasn’t.

Well, it was. 

The rest of it had been taken away from her, because that’s what manipulative relationships did.

She’d allowed Pete to dictate what she’d done with her free time, given in to his demands that she spend it with him as a good girlfriend should, and had put distance between herself and those she really cared about and needed.

People who’d accepted the distance, and made no effort to close it.

She knew what they thought, though they hadn’t said it aloud. She knew Daniel and Teal’c thought she was betraying Jack and the something that was between them, while she thought Jack himself was relieved that she’d been the one to move on first.

He didn’t love her anymore; maybe he never had. Feeling feelings, caring about her more than he should... Those things weren’t necessarily love, were they?

Just because she...

Tears stung her eyes, made the back of her throat ache.

“Don’t go there,” she told herself, curling up into the corner of the sofa, cushion clutched to her stomach. “Don’t.”

She’d been foolish to think... to dream... to hope.

She’d been foolish, as she always was when it came to men and the notion of forever love and happily ever after.

The hallucination aboard the Prometheus, coupled with his strange expression when she’d called him Jack in the infirmary, was a much needed wake up call. She’d realised she couldn’t spend the rest of her life wishing for something she couldn’t have, something he didn’t want.

So when Pete had come along, when he’d seemed so sweet at first... So deceptive.... She’d fallen for it, been blind to it, gone along with it...

The final nail in the coffin was when she’d - stupidly - given the General a chance to say something when Pete had proposed. The smallest of indications would’ve been enough, would have stopped her from saying yes...

But that was the past. This was her future.

Alone, at Christmas.

#

“She’s still not answering.” Cassie sighed, hanging up the phone for the third time.  
It was all go in the kitchen, in the den.

But something - someone - was missing and they were all very well aware of it.

“She’s probably busy,” Daniel tried to reassure her, but he was looking down at his phone, too. Five text messages, all unanswered.

All unread.

“Indeed,” Teal’c agreed. “Is it not likely Samantha Carter is preparing her Christmas meal?”

Cassie sighed, and Jack felt for her all over again. It was her first Christmas without Janet and he suspected she was regretting her decision not to spend it with Carter, the nearest thing to a mom she had left. “Maybe.”

“Try calling her again,” Jack suggested, taking a small sip of beer. “I’m sure she’s as desperate to talk to you as you are to her.”

He watched as Cassie tried again, watched as her eyes brimmed with tears and she did her best to keep her bottom lip from trembling. 

“Maybe she’s upset I said no to spending Christmas with her. I know she’ll be missing Mom, too, but I didn’t think Pete would want me around.”

Jack bit his tongue against his thoughts on Pete, and threw Daniel a Look to keep him silent, too. He told himself his dislike of the guy was petty jealously, and that Daniel and Teal’c’s dislike of him was some sort of misplaced loyalty. 

But his gut twisted uncomfortably, remembering the growing shadows under Sam’s eyes, the tension in her jaw and shoulders whenever the cop came up in conversation. He told himself he was seeing things that weren’t there, seeing what he wanted to. 

She wouldn’t be marrying the guy if he didn’t make her happy, if she didn’t love him.

‘She wouldn’t have made him wait two weeks, ask your opinion if she did,’ the little voice at the back of his head said.

As he debated what to do, his phone call, the ringtone that he’d assigned to the SGC. His frown deepened, his blood running cold as the voice on the other end alerted him to the phone call the SGC had received mere minutes ago.

“Jack?”

“O’Neill?”

He hung up as he walked through to the kitchen, turning off anything that might cause his house to burn down. “Grab your coats,” he ordered.

#

The drive to Sam’s house took a third less than it should’ve done, with Jack catching them up on the conversation he’d had with Walter.

Shanahan had called the base, drunk, demanding to speak to Sam. If she didn’t speak to him, he was going public with what he knew about the Stargate program.

He wasn’t the cause of Jack’s - or Walter’s - concern; the drunk cop was already being taken care of, taken into custody by SF’s who’d remind him when he’d sobered up of the consequences of breaking the NDA he’d signed. No, it was Sam they were all worried about, Sam no one - not even the SGC - had been able to reach.

Thoughts of what they’d find at her house caused him to put his foot down, though rationally he told himself he had no reason to think the worst.

But he’d lost people before, and knew losing her would be the end of him.

Her house was dark and quiet. He used his key, lead the way inside, listening intently for any sound that the house wasn’t as empty as he seemed.

Cassie saw her first, hushing them all when she realised Sam was asleep on the sofa. 

Something in his chest eased at the sight of her, but tightened again when he noticed the tear stains marring her cheeks.

“Let her sleep,” he told Cassie quietly, realising the young woman was about to wake her guardian. “She’ll wake up when she’s ready.”

“So we’re just going to leave her here?” Cassie wanted to know, folding her arms over her chest in a way that told Jack she was brewing for a fight.

“No,” he started, only to be interrupted by Daniel.

“We can’t just sit here in the dark waiting for her to wait up,” Daniel whispered. “That’s a bit creepy.”

“We’re not, no. You and T are going to take my truck and get the food from my place. Bring it back here and we’ll finish cooking. If she’s not awake by then, we’ll wake her up.”

Daniel nodded, accepting the keys from Jack’s outstretched hand.

For whatever reason, Sam had decided not to tell them about her breakup and had opted not to come to them for Christmas.

So, Jack decided, carefully tugging the throw from over the back of her couch to cover her sleeping form, if she wouldn’t come to Christmas, Christmas would just have to come to her.

#

Her stomach grumbled, awakening before her body began to stir.

Other than the unexpected, tantalising scent of Christmas dinner, Sam’s sleepy brain realised she was a lot warmer than she had been when she’d fallen asleep. Snuggling into the warmth a little more, her mind slowly became aware of the changes in her living room.

She heard voices, too. Hushed voices, but familiar ones. Her brow furrowed as she placed Teal’c’s deep voice followed by Cassie’s sweet giggle. Then she heard a low murmur that could only be Daniel, followed by a no doubt sarcastic retort she couldn’t quite make out by Jack.

Where they really there?

Why?

As she woke up fully, she pushed the blanket from around her shoulders and sat up, slowly becoming aware of the whispered conversation in the dining room followed by a silence she was immediately suspicious of.

Looking up when she sensed she wasn’t alone, she felt self-conscious to see the General - Jack - standing over her, the soft grin that did weird things to her on his face.

“Sleeping beauty awakes,” he teased, dropping to a crouch that made his knees protest when she dropped her gaze. “Hey, don’t do that.”

“Do what?” She asked, trying to blink away the sting in her eyes. 

“Hide,” he said simply. 

When she lifted her gaze, she found him staring right back, her breath catching and her pulse tripping at the look in his eyes.

It was a look she’d seen before, on the other side of a forcefield, believing she was about to die.

Scared she was about to watch him die, too.

A look she remembered being on the receiving end of in a room at the SGC where confessions were made and left to linger.

Oh.

_Oh._

She felt her cheeks flush, a shy smile take shape on her lips.

A wordless conversation, said with a look that was far from simple.

“Come on, before Teal’c eats it all.” He stood, offering her a hand she didn’t hesitate in taking.

A hand that wrapped firmly around hers and wouldn’t let go.

#  
End


End file.
